


After the Storm

by 64907



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Character Study, Hopeful Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 15:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19360072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/64907/pseuds/64907
Summary: Sho calls Jun in the middle of the night. They talk about the future and what it might hold after Arashi.





	After the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know. Rated T from me? Anyway. Happy 5x20 album release day, y'all. I watched the 7-minute PV and it's the saddest thing I've seen despite Arashi being the usual Arashi in it, and when I tried to distract myself, someone posted [this translation of Sho and Jun way back in 2001 and 2013](https://twitter.com/kanaribroken/status/1143485923083993088) and I thought, why not?
> 
> So here it is, the galaxy brain thought of "SJ talk to each other the first time someone suggests a hiatus": the fic. This is sad. I think. It's basically the product of my feelings after that PV and listening to A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman while looking at caps of Jun. But I always viewed my sadness as something to be shared, because I hate being sad alone. Let's all cry together.
> 
> Special thanks to my friends on twitter who kept sending me stuff to make me sadder. Also thanking Angel for looking over. Any mistakes left are mine, missed by fingers that can't keep up with a brain on overdrive.

He’s pressing the Call button before he even realizes it.  
  
It’s been months. It’s been months of talking, of opting out and saving it for another day, but going back to it eventually. The idea of it is unthinkable. Unimaginable, even.  
  
Arashi is ending.  
  
The tabloids will have a field day if any word about it goes out. They’re still shaken even months after Ohno gathered them, telling him that he wanted out. That if possible, he wanted something else. That he believed there has to be something else aside from what they have.  
  
It’s been months since then, but Sho still can’t believe it. He remembers waking up on the floor of his room the morning after Ohno told them about his feelings. For how long did he keep those thoughts to himself? He wants an out, he said. He wants to leave, he said.  
  
It was Aiba who first suggested an alternative. They were all so shaken by it that for the first time, words wouldn’t come. Sho prided himself with knowing what the others think even before they say it. Being together for almost twenty years does that. But he knew there was nothing to say.  
  
“How about we take a break?” was what Aiba said. He wasn’t looking at anyone when he laid that option on the table, but Sho wouldn’t forget his expression. The last time Aiba had looked like that, they had just been informed of performing in Kokuritsu for the first time.  
  
“We?” Sho remembers Nino asking. “As in all of us?”  
  
“Arashi is all of us,” Aiba said.  
  
He has no idea when the ringing stopped, replaced by a quiet “Hello?” that shakes him from his thoughts.  
  
“Hello,” Sho echoes. “Is now a good time?”  
  
There’s a pause before he gets a response. “It’s fine.”  
  
Sho doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t even know why he called at all—he usually calls about work, about setlist clarifications and choreography changes. Sometimes for catching up. But right now, he has no idea what to say.  
  
“Sho-san?”  
  
“We can’t go on,” is what he says in the end despite having no idea how the words came to him. It’s like his mind and mouth are separate entities entirely, and he has no faculties left to merge them all back together. He’s not making sense.  
  
“We as in Arashi?”  
  
Even hearing their name hurts. He doesn’t know why, but it does. It simply does. Arashi’s never been an easy word to digest for him even from before. He hated it when he and Nino came across it scribbled on a piece of paper. Such a big name for five young boys who had no idea what the future held. Such a big responsibility for five naive young boys who had no idea how things were, just that they had to survive an entire day of reporters after riding a yacht.  
  
None of it made sense at the time. But as the years went on, the name wasn’t any less difficult for Sho to stomach. When their first record label dropped them for another group, Sho wanted to leave. He wanted to leave even before—he thought singing for a volleyball event was the end of it. But there was a handshake event followed by a concert, and by then he was somewhat believing. Maybe it would work. Maybe they had a chance in a tough industry. Their first single had been a certified Double Platinum, after all.  
  
But then other groups were formed. They had competition. They weren’t the only hopeful boys in the industry. The concert attendees dwindled. The concert goods weren’t selling as much as the first time. By then, hearing their name became tough, more so when the higher ups spoke it with disappointment.  
  
“What’s happening to you, Arashi?” or “Weren’t you going to create a storm throughout the world? What happened?” or any close variation of “If you keep producing mediocre performances like this, no one will come to see you as Arashi.”  
  
He struggled with it. He struggled with being introduced as Arashi’s Sakurai Sho, to the point he thought maybe someday he could just drop it and be Sakurai Sho. Surely staying in the entertainment business for five years would mean something, he thought. The name sickened him because of how difficult it was to bear, because of the number of sacrifices they all had to make for it to work.  
  
He exhales. “As in Arashi, yes,” he affirms after a moment.  
  
“Aiba-kun said we can take a break,” Jun tells him, and Sho can’t quite tell how he’s feeling. He’s the one Sho’s been worried the most about the moment Ohno spoke those words. But up to now, Jun hasn’t said anything, hasn’t opened up.  
  
Sho didn’t expect himself to reach out first. After all, he’s the busier one of the two of them, especially if it’s not concert season. Not that it’s a competition.  
  
“You honestly believe that?” he asks. He has to hear it. He doesn’t know what to believe in anymore. All he knows is that Ohno has reached his limit and wants other things, things he cannot have while he’s Arashi.  
  
They all have their own versions of those, and frankly, Sho’s not that surprised that it’s Ohno who spoke of it first. What surprises him is that Ohno has dropped the hint that the four of them should go on without him.  
  
Jun is silent on the other line and it’s answer enough. Sho knows. They’ve been together for a long time that he simply knows despite not seeing Jun’s face. Out of all of them, Jun was the one who truly wanted to be in Arashi. The one who first inhabited it, breathed it, claimed it, and owned it. The one who carried it with pride like the flag he’d been waving against the strong winds of the Hawaiian sea.  
  
“No,” Jun tells him. “But I want to.”  
  
His words take Sho back. They’re unexpected and Sho loses his footing all of a sudden, feeling fifteen years younger with his hair dyed blond and he had a piercing on his ear and another one on his navel.  
  
Jun had said the same exact words before. Back when he felt they had to change for Arashi to work and had no one else to tell it to but Sho, who felt the same without knowing how to reach out to anyone. It was Jun who’d found him first, telling him that they couldn’t go on as they were if they wanted those seats filled and for those copies to sell.  
  
“Think of Tokyo Dome, Sho-kun,” Jun said to him. “Tokyo Dome, the five of us. Or who knows, maybe Kokuritsu.”  
  
The idea seemed preposterous at the time. Too ambitious. He remembered laughing, thinking it was a massive upgrade from Yokohama Arena. “Not until we fill those seats and sell more singles. You think we can do it? It has to be all five of us doing it or it won’t work, you know that. You believe we can?”  
  
“No,” Jun told him. “But I want to.”  
  
Of the five of them, Jun is the believer. He always had been. It’s one of the things Sho’s always admired about him, that no matter how atrocious and far-fetched the idea is, he always thinks he can find a way for it to work. He’s particular and an undeniable perfectionist, but when he puts his mind to something, it happens.  
  
It’s his own version of a miracle, and Sho always looked up to him because of that. He’s come a long way from the scrawny boy with large eyes that spills orange juice on his unsuspecting seatmate on a plane ride.  
  
“A break,” Sho repeats, his voice soft. “What will we do? What will I do?”  
  
At that, Jun laughs. It’s not mocking, though it sounds disbelieving. “Sho-kun, you’re the one who’s got the most to do out of all of us. Don’t say something like that.”  
  
“No,” Sho says, and he wants to make things clear. “No, what I meant to say is—”  
  
Then he gets cut off and has to backtrack, because what did he mean to say?  
  
“You don’t exactly know how it’ll be when Arashi’s not there,” Jun says for him, and Sho shuts his eyes. “When Arashi’s put aside and instead of Arashi’s Sakurai Sho, you’re just Sakurai Sho. Am I wrong?”  
  
Sho doesn’t have the courage to tell him that he got it right. Jun’s always loved quizzes—surely he’d know. It’s like he’s seen through Sho with Sho not knowing, and perhaps it’s always been that way. Jun always had this particular hold on him even when they were younger.  
  
“None of us know,” Jun says, and this is something Sho himself knows. They haven’t reached that point. They haven’t even agreed on what to do. But hearing it from another member is reassuring, like he’s not alone in this.  
  
He isn’t. He realizes he isn’t. Even Ohno has no idea what it’ll be like. But unlike Ohno, Sho’s not brave enough to try it. He doesn’t want to know.  
  
He doesn’t want the dream to ever end.  
  
“What if,” he says evenly, carefully, and he knows Jun is listening, “what if I don’t want to know what it’s like?”  
  
He has no idea how he got here. He can vividly remember the days he hated the name. In university, when people hear that he’s from Arashi, their treatment of him changed. Some were full of adoration. Some outright hated him out of jealousy, wishing him to fail his subjects so he’d repeat another year. An idol in university was unheard of. Just drop out, they said behind his back. What do you need the degree for? You’re making enough money!  
  
When someone who had no idea what Arashi was became his friend, Sho was grateful for her presence. For once, he felt just like any other student, struggling with macro and never having enough time to review to pass his exams. For once, he felt like any other person.  
  
But Sho doesn’t remember how that felt like anymore. He can’t remember if he ever wanted it. All he knows is that it felt like a reprieve on tough times. When everybody was expecting him to not get his degree on time because of his other commitments, he held on to that feeling.  
  
But it was all over now. He’s Arashi now. They all are. In the end, he chose Arashi. Through the years, the five of them kept choosing Arashi that it became the norm. That when Ohno suddenly paused and made another decision, they were all caught off-guard.  
  
Sho realizes now that this is what he was never able to prepare himself for. They prepared him for what to say, how to smile, how to dance, sing, and perform. They taught him how to carry himself back when he didn’t know how to. But this was something their thick stack of mock questions about the debut never had.  
  
They never prepared him for what to do if he should ever lose it.  
  
The worst thing is, they made him love it. They made him love being in Arashi, being part of Arashi. “We will do things only the five of us can,” Aiba had promised in Hawaii. And they did. They’ve gone and done it—Tokyo Dome and Kokuritsu. Things he never thought were possible but had been because it was the five of them. It wouldn’t have worked with anybody else.  
  
And now they have to put it all aside for something new, something unknown, and he’s lost. The only comforting thought is that he’s not alone in this, that like him, there are four other people struggling on how to piece things back now that a wedge has been put in between. If he lets go, will there be a place for him to go back to?  
  
Will the other four want to go back once they’ve had a taste of what’s out there, what other things are possible if they aren’t carrying the name?  
  
“I don’t want to know what it’s like,” Jun says, and reflexively, Sho tightens his grip on his phone. He can’t miss a single word of this. He’ll never forgive himself if he does. “I’ve always had this—Arashi, you, everyone—and I always wanted it. I don’t ever want to know what it feels like to not have any of it.”  
  
Sho hears Jun take a deep breath and waits. He waits because it’s his own form of penance after all those years of failing to listen to Jun’s musings and dropping the line on him. Jun doesn’t know of this, but Sho is trying to make up for all those times.  
  
“But at the same time, it’s Leader,” Jun says, his tone gentle. Like he’s not hurting at all. “If there’s anyone who has an idea or two about what might happen, it’s him, isn’t it?”  
  
Sho smiles at that, letting out a quiet laugh. “He hasn’t been very Leader-like though.”  
  
“But it’s him,” Jun says again. “You understand, don’t you? It’s him. He’s the one who never wanted any of us to do half-assed work in the first place. He’s the one who wanted all five of us to work hard towards the same goal with no one being left behind. If he wants to branch out, to try other things without us, I think he can do it.”  
  
This is something Sho knows about Jun that Jun may not know about himself. That when he’s clearly affected and struggling, he makes sure no one else feels that way. It’s his instinct. He hides how he feels just to see everyone happy, and when things get tough, he acts tougher to beat it back down.  
  
Nino once said that should Arashi fall, Jun is the one who’ll hold it up long enough for all of them to get out. It’s just how Jun is.  
  
To Jun, it’s a matter of whether Ohno can find what he’s looking for or not. But because he’s Jun, he believes Ohno can.  
  
But what about you, Sho wants to ask. What about the rest of us?  
  
“And if he doesn’t want to come back after finding what he’s looking for and doing the things he’s never done before, what then?” Sho asks because he has to. It’s there, lingering at the back of his mind since Ohno spoke the words. What happens then? “What happens to us? To Arashi?”  
  
“It won’t come to that,” Jun says, and Sho wishes he can see him. They always clashed at things like this. He wants to be optimistic, but the possibility of Ohno or any of them not wanting to return is present and terrifying, like a pit Sho has no idea how to escape. He wants to tell Jun that it might come to that, to stop believing because there’s not much to go on with that.  
  
You don’t know, he wants to tell him.  
  
“It won’t,” Jun repeats, and he sounds like he’s saying it to himself. “I don’t know, Sho-kun.” He laughs, but there’s no trace of amusement in it. “I don’t know what I’ll do if it comes to that. I can’t wrap my mind around it. Don’t you see? I can’t think. If the day comes that none of you wants to go back to how things are now, I don’t know what I’ll do.”  
  
There won’t be much for him to do, Sho realizes. Jun’s the one most invested in all of this. They all are, but it’s Jun who always gives so much. It’s in the concerts. In every performance they have to do in front of thousands of people who’d settle for lesser but won’t be getting it because it’s Jun and he has standards. If he’s strict, he’s worse with himself.  
  
“You’ve always wanted this,” Sho reminds him. “You were the only one who did back when we were just kids. You’ve always looked forward to us reaching this, to becoming what we are now. We’re going to lose it. If we take a break, we’re losing all of it.”  
  
“But we’re still Arashi,” Jun says. “We are. No one’s taking it from us. No one can take it from us. You, Aiba-kun, Nino, Leader—the five of us make Arashi. Don’t you see?”  
  
“See what?” Sho asks, frustrated. He doesn’t know anything. He feels like that kid again, about to submit his resignation only to learn that he’s about to debut. “See what?”  
  
“We’re not losing anything if we’re not letting go of anything,” Jun tells him. “No one’s letting go. We’re just looking at different directions, different possibilities. Tapping into other options.”  
  
“We,” Sho repeats. “You’re not. You’re not going to see that stage for a long time. You’re not going to stand there with the four of us by your side for a long time. Maybe never. Ever think of that?”  
  
Sho regrets his words as soon as he says it. Jun stops—Sho can tell from how silent he’s become on the other line. He’s not being an asshole on purpose, but the words just came and he had to say it. Jun has to hear it.  
  
“Maybe there’s something else for me too,” Jun says after the silence has stretched so long that Sho’s grown uncomfortable with it. “For all of us. We’re just not seeing it now because we’re so hung up on the thought of the five of us that doing things on our own is something that’s hard to think of. But maybe we need this, too.”  
  
“Need?” Sho asks, frowning now. Why would he need to walk away?  
  
“There are things we can do because it’s the five of us,” Jun says. “Concerts included. But if we take a step back, there are also things we can’t do because it’s the five of us and chasing after them will hold the other four down. I’m not being optimistic. But I keep thinking about it: what if there’s something else for me too? Something I’m not seeing because I’m so focused on this, on Arashi?”  
  
“What are we without Arashi?” Sho finds himself asking, and it’s what he always wanted to know. Sakurai Sho, the Keio graduate who’s an idol, the fastest at stealing hearts. Sakurai Sho, the one who takes control of the conversation. The moderator.  
  
“I don’t know,” Jun says, and it’s the truth. None of them knows. Sho keeps forgetting, but Jun is there to remind him now. No one knows. “But whatever it is, it has to be worth a shot. Why else did Leader want to try it?”  
  
I’m not as brave as him, Sho thinks, despite being one of the first ones to branch out by trying his hand at newscasting and seeing where that would take him. He’d done it before Ohno considered showing his artwork and holding an exhibition. He’d done it after receiving encouragement from Nino, who’d gone ahead to Hollywood to see what it was like.  
  
“Try it,” he remembers Nino saying. “Just go for it, Sho-chan. I didn’t even know Clint Eastwood eats a lot of peanuts until I went to see it for myself.”  
  
And he did. He’d listened to Nino and had his go at it and now he’s spearheading Zero himself. He’s done with branching out. What else is there for him to do if there’s no Arashi?  
  
Nino can always find some new role he hasn’t played, some new and critically-acclaimed director he hasn’t worked with. He might even direct a film of his own like he used to dream of. Aiba is given more variety work including sports shows, and who knows, some network station might offer him something new when VS Arashi and Shiyagare both come to an end. Ohno will have his drawings, his sculptures, and the rest of his art. He can be a freelance artist if he wishes, never committing to anything but his own time and living his best life.  
  
And Jun—he stops.  
  
He stops when he thinks of Jun despite knowing Jun will always have his offers of serial dramas and films. Of the five of them, Jun is the one whose presence is most felt in their concerts. He’s never branched out and instead focused on Arashi, invested in it. Aside from acting, Jun hasn’t tried anything else.  
  
But he wants to know. Like Ohno, he wishes to know what the future might hold, if they don’t have to worry about being a part that makes the whole. It makes Sho stop because of how selfless it is, because he knows. He knows.  
  
If there’s anyone hurting the most, it’s Jun. It’s Jun who’s always wanted to be in Arashi, the boy who held their flag at the risk of being taken by the winds himself.  
  
“You’ll know,” Jun says, and Sho thinks he might be smiling. “In time, we’ll all know what to do. We just don’t know it now because it hasn’t happened yet. But if there’s anything I know, it’s that I don’t want to do any of this without Leader.”  
  
“I don’t want to, either,” Sho tells him, reassures him. “It’s not the same. It’s not Arashi if there’s one missing. It’s not like we can do what we did back when Nino was promoting Iwo Jima.”  
  
When Jun laughs, it’s a relief. It’s light-hearted but rich, a far cry from the laugh that he did earlier. “Maybe we can. Has anyone suggested that? Bringing out a cardboard cutout of Leader? The fans won’t be able to tell!”  
  
“Or we can have a hologram of him like you guys did with me when I had to go to Vancouver,” Sho says, smiling. What he’s saying is stupid. But it feels good to say it. It’s the first time he laughed over the idea of it after hearing it the first time.  
  
“They won’t even notice,” Jun says, then he falls silent. When he speaks next, his tone is serious. “I’m scared too, you know.”  
  
Sho shuts his eyes, slumping in his seat. Sometimes, he forgets that he’s always had these people with him that like him, they can also tell what he’s trying to say despite him not explicitly uttering the words. He knows they’ve been together for twenty years, but the gravity of that relationship is what he often forgets.  
  
“I think we all are,” Jun continues. “But we’ve come this far. Can you throw away those twenty years so easily?”  
  
The answer is immediate. “No,” he says, shaking his head despite Jun not seeing it. “No, I can’t.”  
  
“Neither can I, so that’s what I’m holding to,” Jun says. “I know you, Sho-san. You’re wondering why I believe. Why I still believe despite the other possibilities. It’s because I know I can’t throw away those years, just like that. That if I can, I’d like to go back to it someday. Perhaps we’ll be different. Perhaps all of us have changed at that time. But if I don’t hold on to that, to the thought of the five of us finding our way back again, then who else will?”  
  
“Aside from the fans?” Sho asks, and he hears Jun smile.  
  
“Aside from the fans, yeah.”  
  
Sho chooses to say nothing and lets it all sink in. He always prided himself with being part of those who love Arashi the most, that even their own love exceeds that of the fans’. They will never understand the depth of the sacrifices, the hardships, the days in which doing it didn’t seem worth it but they had to, anyway. For Arashi.  
  
Always for Arashi.  
  
“Sho-san,” Jun says, “it’s just a break. We’ll just stop making music for a while. Hopefully that gives me enough time to know all of our B-sides. I can’t even remember what the last few ones were.”  
  
Sho smiles despite himself, despite the doubts still inside him but are beginning to dissipate. “You won’t move on, will you?”  
  
“No,” Jun replies instantly. “Can you?”  
  
“No,” Sho says. They’re the first five members of their own fanclub. How is he supposed to move on from all of that? They’re the first fans of themselves, disgusting and self-absorbed it may sound. “But that’s what I’m afraid of.”  
  
The uncertainty of it is terrifying. The fact that he’ll have no Arashi to go back to should things get tough on his side is even more terrifying. But the thought of any of them moving on scares him the most. They might forget what it’s like. They might settle into their newfound personas and become comfortable enough that they won’t remember what it’s like. And he doesn’t want that to happen.  
  
“Sho-san,” Jun says again, his tone uncharacteristically patient. He’s gone so far from the kid who needed help with his homework. “That’s why we’re coming back. To remember if we forget. If it’s possible for us to forget. We’re not leaving. None of us are.”  
  
What are the people working hard for if it’s not what’s right in front of them?  
  
Sho still remembers when Nino reminded them that Ohno had said that. Ohno, the one person who never said much and chose to struggle in silence. Ohno who had more responsibility than any of them, someone who perhaps feels like he owes more to the name, being the Leader.  
  
Sho thinks he’ll never fully understand. He’ll never know what truly made Ohno decide this despite Ohno being completely truthful to them when he’d gathered them that night. But he understands a little, that they’re done with working hard. They’ve done it. They’ve lived up to the name, to whatever expectation the management and everyone had of them when they debuted.  
  
They had everything. But it’s not what Ohno wanted. It’s what he wanted for Arashi, but not for himself.  
  
If Sho thinks about it like this, he finds that he can’t blame him. They all put aside personal affairs for the sake of Arashi. They’ve all been hurt by Arashi, whether intentional or not. Not a day goes by that Sho doesn’t remember the hurts, the sluggish progress that took years to form despite the relentless effort. And not a day goes by that he’s not thankful for all of it.  
  
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he finds himself saying. “About the stage. About not standing there. I didn’t mean that.” He takes a deep breath. “I want to do that again.”  
  
“We will,” Jun promises, and for the first time since Sho called, he believes him. “For now, we will. You know what I’m thinking of?”  
  
“No,” Sho says, indulging him. He’s never been good at turning down any of Jun’s ideas, no matter how crazy they sound. He flew in a stadium full of seventy-thousand people because Jun had said it’d be fine and it’d look great. And he was right.  
  
“Fifty concerts,” Jun says. “Fifty concerts for an entire year. Just...we can do that. Just to make it last. I know I’m stretching it. And I know if I propose it to the others they’ll think I’m making the most out of it. And I am. I’m giving myself the chance to appreciate it all, to have fifty more times of standing on that stage with the four of you right by my side.”  
  
“It’s never been done before,” Sho says.  
  
“Yeah,” Jun says, and he sounds as if he deflates a little, like reality has sunk in and his imagination has come to an end. “Yeah, it hasn’t.”  
  
“But we can do it,” Sho tells him. “The five of us—doing things no one else can do, just like what Aiba-chan promised. We’ll do it before we take a break.”  
  
“Fifty concerts is going to kill me though,” Jun says with a huff of laughter, and Sho can just picture him right now, in this moment: his eyes crinkling at the sides, his face unshaven, cheeks perhaps reddened from what little alcohol he’s consumed. “Planning for that—can you imagine it?”  
  
“No,” Sho says honestly. “But you can do it. You’re you. You’ve always delivered up to all your ideas, no matter how unthinkable they all seem.”  
  
“I know,” Jun says, and Sho likes him this way: confident and more like himself. This is the Jun he knows, Matsumoto Jun of Arashi, the brain behind every succesful concert production they had. “Moving stage, right? They thought we couldn’t do that here.”  
  
It was a long time ago, but Sho remembered it clearly. Jun suggested it in front of everyone during a planning meeting and everyone gave him puzzled looks like he was out of his mind. And when Jun suggested bungee jumping in their concerts two years later, there were fewer looks of doubt from the staff.  
  
Nowadays, those looks hardly existed. Ah, it’s Matsujun, they all say. He’s on it again. In the end, they all do what he says anyway.  
  
“Let’s do it,” Sho says. “I—” he pauses, and decides to throw caution to the wind and just say it. He may never get another chance. “I want to do it.”  
  
“You’re the one most affected by this, considering the amount of work you have,” Jun reminds him, because of course he knows. He never says it outright, but he does keep track of everyone like Sho does. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Let’s do it,” Sho says again, with as much conviction as he can muster. “I’ll even help you out, how’s that? I’ll sit through some of the meetings you often go to alone.”  
  
Jun is quiet for a while that Sho’s afraid he destroyed the moment, but when he speaks, it takes Sho back to the hopeful kid who always called him in the middle of the night to talk about even the smallest of things.  
  
“Are you sure? It’s not the same as the time you were teaching me about participles and I was too stupid to get it. It’s boring. I can talk about LED lights for days.”  
  
Sho can’t help smiling at that. Jun is many things, sometimes a purposefully forgetful one. But when he remembers, it’s always at the right timing. “Bore me then. I look forward to it.”  
  
Jun laughs, soft enough that Sho presses his phone closer to his ear to hear it. He doesn’t want to miss it. “You’ve changed a lot, Sho-kun. You used to drop the line on me.”  
  
Sho doesn’t know how to react to that. A nervous chuckle seems inappropriate and insensitive. Not saying anything might make it worse, but saying something also might. It’s why looking back scares him sometimes, but not as much as looking forward. Especially now that their days are numbered.  
  
But Jun’s right. They’re not leaving. They’re just taking a detour, perhaps. They’ll find their way back because Sho refuses not to. He refuses to lose his way, to forget what it’s like. If they only have now then he’ll make the most of it.  
  
“The press is going to be hell once they get a hold of this,” Jun says. “They might say we’re disbanding.”  
  
“Except we’re not,” Sho says firmly. Like that time he chose to believe in Arashi, he holds on to it and claims it. “We’re coming back. We just don’t know when, but we will.” He closes his eyes when he adds, “You asked me earlier who else will believe in it if you don’t. I will. We’ll stand on that stage again, the five of us.”  
  
Jun needs to hear it. Even without seeing him, Sho knows he has to hear it. Jun’s putting up a brave front as always, reassuring Sho when he himself has the same fears, the same ugly thoughts in his mind, the same doubts. He probably does it for everyone else in his own small, unnoticeable ways.  
  
But Sho knows him. And knowing him, he’s the one who’ll take the longest time moving on and moving forward. He’ll be the one most hung up about it despite acting otherwise, the one who’ll keep looking back to everything they’ve achieved over the years.  
  
“Is this you looking forward, Sho-san?” Jun asks, curious and perhaps a bit teasing. “This is different from the one who called me.”  
  
Sho laughs. “Shut up. Maybe. I don’t really know. All I know is I want a break over one of us leaving. I’d rather wait for however long it takes than to do all of this with only the four of us. It’s not us.”  
  
“It’s not Arashi, you’re right,” Jun says. “We’ll find our way back, won’t we? Arashi isn’t going anywhere.”  
  
“Not without the five of us,” Sho says. It’s not Arashi if it’s not them. He can’t stress it enough.  
  
There’s silence for a few seconds before Jun speaks again. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”  
  
“Tomorrow night,” Sho echoes. And before he can overthink it, he adds, “Thank you.”  
  
He might never get to say it again. The days are numbered, he recalls.  
  
Jun’s response is the quiet kind of teasing laughter that reminds Sho too much of days long gone. When Jun was shorter than him and had a smaller built. “You’re always welcome to call me.”  
  
“I know,” Sho says. “There’s no one else, really.” They’ve been doing this for twenty years. If there’s someone who understands whatever it is he may be feeling for Arashi, it’s Jun.  
  
But Sho will save the rest for tomorrow night. Tomorrow night, Sho will say what he thinks of Aiba’s suggestion in front of everyone. He’ll lay down all his worries, all the things he’s anxious about. But he’ll spare everyone from the ugly, mean things that Jun had to hear tonight. And at the end of it, Sho wants to talk about the far future, to what he hopes might be lying ahead.  
  
It sounds too optimistic and perhaps borderline unrealistic. It’s a miracle they stayed long enough for them to reach this point. But Sho’s seen enough of what Arashi can do—can accomplish—to know that this is just another path they have to take.  
  
None of it is worth doing if one of them isn’t into it. It’s why they worked so hard for years, to see themselves exactly where they are, where they’re standing now.  
  
Sho’s still afraid. On his bad days, he knows he’s going to entertain the thought of them not getting back together ever again. And on his worse days, he’s going to think of osing Arashi as the price he has to pay for everything he now has.  
  
At his worst, he’s going to think he’s alone. He knows himself well enough that he doesn’t exclude the possibilities of any of this happening.  
  
But for now, they have time. Arashi isn’t going anywhere, Jun said. For now.  
  
What are the people working hard for if it’s not what’s right in front of them?  
  
Someday, they’ll stand on that stage again, facing new and old, both familiar and unfamiliar faces.  
  
And on that day, Sho is sure, it’ll feel like home.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Orange juice incident: young Jun once spilled his orange juice on an unsuspecting Sho way back in 2000 or 2001. Not on purpose, iirc. Sho simply wanted to complain about it on television before.
> 
> 2\. Sho once befriended someone in Keio who had no idea that he was in Arashi. I actually forgot where he talked about this. Probably Tetsuko no Heya? But don't hold me to that. Maybe it came from a magazine. I'm the most unreliable when I have to recall a source.
> 
> 3."The Keio graduate who's an idol, the fastest at stealing hearts" is lifted and paraphrased from Sho's passage in La Tormenta.
> 
> 4\. The thing about Clint Eastwood eating peanuts is according to Nino. Nino said he kept eating peanuts on the Iwo Jima set LMAO. Idk why that stuck with me after all these years. Probably to use it for this story. I think he said it on GnA.
> 
> 5\. They did put up a cardboard cutout of Nino in Utaban when Nino was promoting Iwo Jima overseas. And when Sho had to cover the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, they did a hologram performance of him of Yurase, Ima wo and Troublemaker on Music Station.
> 
> 6\. "What are the people working hard for if it’s not what’s right in front of them?" is what Ohno said way back in 2002 or 2003, lifted from the NHK Documentary on their 15th Anniversary.
> 
> 7\. Title is from the 5x20 lyrics, as translated by tapsilogue [here](https://tamagoess.dreamwidth.org/26816.html).
> 
> Feel free to yell about this manband with me on twitter. Like I said, let's all be sad together. Maybe that'll make things easier.


End file.
